Ramifications
by Zjun Rei
Summary: On her Pilgrimage she is accused of hack into a terminal system, Ran'Sara barely escapes into her shuttle only to run into the Proxima Federation, one of the Citadel Councils many hidden, dirty secrets. AU to ME1/ME2.
1. Meeting the Proxima Federation

**Story name:** Ramifications.

**Universe:** Mass effect with some Mitranic Legends.

**Time (approximate):** Starts just before the end of ME2.

**Relation to main line:** AU, maybe a few cameo's from ME1/ME2

**Short Summary:** On her Pilgrimage, a young Quarian running from slavers enters a blind Mass Relay Jump. Stumbling on a dirty secret hidden by the Council her desperate action has far reaching consequences. In which the Quarians get a cure for their immune systems, the Council is ignored and the Reapers are in for the ass kicking of the century.

**Disclaimer:** silly me, forgetting to inform everyone that I do not in fact, own the mass effect idea, merchandise or any other things related to it… I do own a copy of both games though. Mitranic Legends, as a universe of my own creation which stories are still being written, I do own that though I have not published story for that yet.

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Unknown System.**

**1763 ME Human Calendar, 01 AMW ML Calendar.**

With a thunderous explosion of light bright enough to make the planet in the background look like a fly to a light bulb a group of ships appeared in a swirling of greenish-blue sub-dimensional particles as they dropped out of their Rift Conduits. Three of the ships were of the larger variety, one standing at an impressive seventeen point three kilometers in length and hosting enough weapons to make it easily identified as a warship. The other two were in their own leagues of size as they topped at two hundred and seventy-three kilometers in length, though these were still visibly armed they were not made to fight a war head on.

Near the large ships were smaller ones of multiple configurations, one was unique and looked like it was patched together as it needed more space for each equipment, four more looked a bit patchwork though having a distinct form the former lacked the same circular quad engine pods held on the patchwork ship were again visible on this one. This group of ships quickly realized they were not were they were supposed to be.

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Ziranthia System of the Proxima Federation. (Formerly Unknown System.)**

**1783 ME Human Calendar, 21 AMW ML Calendar.**

Twenty years had passed since the people of Proxima Sector came here in this universe, and they had spread to the local area fast too. Originally their small fleet of haphazard ships had reacted to an emergency beacon of a system close by that had unexpectedly gone into the last stages to become a supernova. They had managed to evacuate the colony there and move them to the ships; the only problem was that their standard Hyperwarp Drives had failed them because of background radiation emitted by the dying star. In their desperation they had turned to the one system only a few ships had been equipped with, an experimental FTL Drive called a Rift Drive, which could expand to bring multiple ships along. Not everything was known about what a Rift Drive did while in transit as they had only developed its first generation of line produced versions of it, in hindsight it was the background radiation unique to that system that changed the effects of the drives. Inter-Dimensional Rift Conduits were not recorded to occur before this.

They had arrived here with approximately sixty million man, woman and children, and now, spread across fourteen new colonies, they had just under triple that number. At first it had been tough, as they had enough food to last everyone about a week, even with rationing. Thankfully the two massive Exodus-class Fleet Support ships were capable of Matter Creation, instead of Matter Manipulation, and could literally make food and raw materials out of pure energy, it was only because of limiters on the systems that it took several days to get them to full efficiency.

After a consensus of the entire military and civilian personnel, they decided that instead of terra-forming a local planet to make it barely habitable due to distance, or lack thereof, to the sun of the system, they would build a planet themselves. With the use of massive time dilation devices and mass amount of automated Constructor drones, they constructed a giant ring in space this ring would hold many weapon batteries and multiple layers of nano-shield emitters to protect the planet as well as large shipyard facilities within its ring and core. It was situated in, what was calculated by the AI's, the ideal spot for warmth and seasonal shifts. After the ring itself was finished with construction they started with a massive hollow space in spherical form, which it was connected to the ring in sixteen locations around the new "world" with massive columns leading into space where the ring was situated. Around locations on the newly added surface of the planet more batteries of ground to orbit weaponry were installed at strategic locations around the planet along with aerial anti-fighter weaponry. It took them, even with time dilation, over six months to build it on the outside of the field, it had taken over one-hundred twenty three years inside the field were the drones had worked.

Now after twenty years they had a report that some kind of space station had been found in a nearby system, it was currently dormant according to readings, but if the scans were conclusive it was some kind of giant slingshot. Of course they had one of their new battle groups augmented with two science vessels stationed near it for two reasons; one was obviously the fact that they were trying to figure out how it worked or better yet, why it was there. Second was that it was an unknown, their long time of war before coming here made them paranoid about unknowns, it typically meant people got killed or otherwise maimed. He had briefly considered sending in an Exodus or the _Dragonfire_, but thought it better not to, it would make the public overly concerned if that kind of firepower was sent to investigate.

They had researched it for over a year when the thing went from dormant to active, it had caused them to promptly place the battle group that had once guarded the area back to make sure it wasn't some weapon or there was and potentially hostile fleet incoming if it indeed was a ship-sized slingshot. What had come out had shocked both sides, one side because it was some kind of freighter/colony ship combination and for the strange ship coming into the, thought to be, uninhabited star system it was shocked because of the fact that there was at least one three kilometer long ship demanding its identification and its reasons for being there. When it had answered that it was there to colonize the third moon of the fifth planet, which had been claimed by the Turian Hierarchy as a new colony for Citadel Space and had been fully approved by the Council, there were certain complications.

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Zarkha System, Neighboring Ziranthia System**

The Captain of the Turian colony ship _Marasus_ was absolutely seething as he all but screamed at the screen were a still calm alien Ship Commander looked on even as his own XO shivered in terror "These systems have been claimed by the Turian Hierarchy and have been flagged by the Citadel Council for colonization. As such I demand that you leave this system immediately." He ground out between gritted teeth, if it had been possible he would have dragged the alien commander trough the screen to make his displeasure known.

Said alien commander had no problems keeping his calm, better yet he had to keep himself from bursting out laughing as the stupidity of this captain and his council. Demanding they leave a system colonized with over twenty million people just because an unknown group of races acknowledges it? These guys were clearly morons of the highest degree. As such he stood to reply, schooling his face in the best impression of their Military Grandmaster's blank Command Stare™ and was inwardly pleased as the Turian, as he called himself, seemed to shrink back a bit. He had no doubt that had it indeed been the Grandmaster using the Command Stare™ the Turian would have either shivered or soiled his pants outright, not even seasoned war veterans from the Millennia Wars could stay composed if he used it. "Be that as it may Captain, the Proxima Federation does not acknowledge the Citadel or its Council as a ruling party nor is it part of Citadel Space. As such any laws passed by this Council or any races affiliated with it, have no hold on any of our citizens, ships and, or colonies. Continuing this course of action, or attempting to force it will be met with lethal force as necessary to protect our system." He calmly and coolly explained as the Turian captain seemed to be even angrier as his mandibles shivered. "Furthermore, you cannot expect a race that has never had contact with said Council to know about any claims set out about this system that has been colonized for over four years now. Therefore I will kindly ask you to turn around and leave through the gateway as you came." He said with the finality of a tombstone falling in place. He promptly had his communications officer cut the channel as he had no plans of arguing for the rights to this system as in this case it was simply first come first serve. He had his communications officer contact Zirantsuna to get an extra battle group here; they would be here within seconds if necessary.

Luckily the Turian captain realized his ship was no match for the larger warships ahead of him, and left while telling them they would regret it. This, of course, prompted the second battle group to arrive and together the two groups made a perimeter around the gateway. The two battle groups consisting of two Battleships, eight Cruisers and two dozen Frigates all together, they all hoped that this was not necessary.

They hoped in vain as the relay activated again and spat out a small fleet of ships consisting of four heavy cruiser sized vessels, twelve frigate sized vessels and thirty corvettes. All of them seemed to be armed with a kind of co-axial coil gun of sorts that were currently being aimed. The reaction to this was quick, efficient and complete as every weapon turret on both battle groups that were currently bared were quickly aimed at the emerged ships and shields flared online within seconds. The weapons fired shortly after being aimed, the Turian or Citadel fleet never got a chance to fire its weapons as all but a few corvettes were wiped out and after the opening salvo made the remaining ships make an uncoordinated run for it. They didn't know yet but they were let go as they jumped to the relay back to their origins, the last corvette was too badly damaged to jump properly and promptly rammed it as it was accelerated, sheering off one of the two arms of the relay and shutting it down. The frigate itself was destroyed on impact.

There had been no communications between both sides, but the Proxima group already knew that this was going to be a fight. Experience had taught them to learn from body language and tone of voice from the Turian captain, they were used to getting what they wanted, and didn't like being basically told to make like a turkey and get stuffed. The show of force was another thing; it was normally used to cow people in submission. This won't work when your largest ships are barely a kilometer in length and your opponent has two that a three times its size.

The relay itself could be repaired later; they had a series of blueprints made by the science vessels deep scanning devices. For now it was best if it was kept closed, the one thing that did change was that about a week after the battle a buoy of some kind went inactive. This was normally known as the Extranet and Comm. Buoys; of course Proxima didn't know this yet and frankly couldn't care less. What they didn't know was that both the Turian Hierarchy and the Citadel Council decided to bury their existence, declaring that particular relay, number 271, off limits even if it would come back online, which it did about ten years after being severely damaged. It would be four hundred years before someone jumped there again.

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Terminus Systems, Secondary Relay 114.**

**2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.**

It had been a good idea at first, go to the Terminus Systems, learn some mercenary style engineering and programming tricks to help out the Flotilla and eventually get a new (secondhand) ship and bring that plus the new tricks back as a gift. That had gone horribly wrong somewhere along the line, while she was learning several programming tricks from a mercenary at Omega some others were hacking into the same system.

It had taken, as usual, about thirty seconds before 'the Quarian' had been accused and people set out to kill her. She had managed to escape the first group, and had fled to her shuttle which had taken a hit from a GAURDIAN Pulse Laser just before hitting the relay and jumping. The shuttle was damaged, severely so, however it was nothing if not sturdy and held together for two more relay jumps even as pirate frigates followed her. Just before the fourth jump she was hit again this time taking out her navigation system several parts of it embedding itself in her side and puncturing her suit. The navigation system had already sent the jump order to the relay, the target relay however had not. The relay, detecting the incoming ship which had sent the activation code, did not receive any notions of which other secondary relay it needed to connect to and as such choose a random one of three, of all relays it choose number 271.

It had been a very scared and violently ill Ran'Sara nar Vertas who felt what remained of her shuttle leave the relay, right into the awaiting arms of several large unknown vessels. Her last thought, before seeing a slightly blue light appearing around her, had been how she would miss her family and friends. After all Quarians with a suit puncture, several crushed or otherwise pierced organs and extreme bacterial infections, did not live beyond ten minutes at most.

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Zarkha System, Neighboring Ziranthia System**

**2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.**

Four hundred years had passed since the day the relay had been activated and the Citadel or Turian fleet had tried to blast them out of the system. They had not expected nor were ready for the heavily damaged shuttle, which was falling apart at the bulkheads, to come trough to almost be thrown out of the relay in a random direction. They had detected one life sign, though a terribly weak one at that and had ordered it directly transported to the medical bay onboard.

Just a few seconds later three more ships were flying out the relay and promptly blew up the small shuttle, it made the Commander of the Manarei glad to have the matter transporter system on his ship. He ordered alpha two combat readiness, which meant shields up and all anti-fighter and lower level pulse cannons online, that proved right as the pirates foolishly attacked the twelve hundred meters long heavy cruiser with some archaic projectile weapons. He promptly told his tactical to remove them from his screens, and he did, two low level pulse cannon blasts were enough, two for each ship. He then contacted the other captains of the cruiser group guarding the relay, telling them he needed to bring and unknown alien being to Zirantsuna's medical labs in order to treat it correctly. They conceded and the Manarei jumped into a short, few second long, Hyperwarp travel to the edge of the military defense ring. It was less than twenty seconds the wounded alien, was beamed to a special medical reception area for the critically wounded and rushed into an ER for emergency treatment.

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Ziranthia System of the Proxima Federation.**

**Zirantsuna, Medical Recovery rooms; Centralier.**

**2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.**

The first thing that Ran'Sara nar Vertas noticed when she opened her eyes was a bright sunlight coming in from the windows next to her which was unobstructed by the visor helmets all Quarians wore, the second was her absolutely monstrous headache. It took her a few minutes to gather herself to see where she was; the room she was in was a simply decorated and painted in an off white color that was easy on the eyes. It wasn't overly luxurious or gaudy, but just right. If she had to guess it was some kind of recovery room, she panicked a bit as her sleep addled mind registered she was not wearing an enviro-suit of any kind but calmed a little when it seemed she had been used to the environment enough to not get sick.

After getting up on shaky legs, she walked around the room a bit, at the side of the room hung a hologram in the centre of a blank wall showing a skeletal image of her, or what she thought was her, with several rows of text in an unknown languages next to it. When she touched the hologram it instantly rearranged itself into Quarian, she imagined this race, whoever they were had used her Omni tool and its data to build a medical file and add her people's language too their translation databases. She was just about to start reading the list of now translated text when the door opened.

A young woman, humanoid, stepped in, she had a set of fierce looking red eyes with some undercurrent of gentleness mixed in, and her ears were pointed more backwards and similar to that of a human wolf, if she remembered right. "I am Aurunia, How are you feeling Ran'Sara?" her soft voice, completely different from what her body posture read, asked her.

She thought about it for a second "I am feeling better that I have in a long time, where am I?" she asked.

"You are in Centralier City, in the Medical Recovery wings attached to the Advanced Medical Laboratories and Research Centers. I know it sounds as a strange place to be, but we have never encountered your race, Quarian I believe, before. So we needed to scan you extensively and collaborate with the files in your holographic interface before we could begin your treatment as it was needed. Now would you mind if I scanned you quickly to see if there are any complications with the medications we gave you?" she replied, and began the scans after being given approval. The wolf-like woman smiled, and began explaining what had happened while she was out.

"We found you more dead than alive, inside a shuttle thrown out the relay on a random course. One of the local cruiser patrols that guard the relay had you transported from your shuttle directly to their medical bay; this was what allowed them to put your body in a time-dilation field until you were sent here. Inside this field maybe a second went by, it took us an hour to redesign several of our medicines to work for you bio-chemistry after which we removed the field and managed to quickly mend your wounds, regrown several organs and ribs inside your body. After this we managed to synthesize several bags of blood using a special cloning technique and transfused it into your body."

Ran'Sara was amazed by these people, a small hand held device was swiftly waved over her three times and the information on the holographic screen seemed to update and change a little. That they had not only scanned and evaluated her wounds and then adapted their medicines to fit her race was amazing, but the fact that they had seemingly slowed time and the technologies were this small and effective was wondrous, little did she know that she was in for the biggest shock yet as the young woman across her continued.

"We modified the synthesized the blood with several counteragents to battle the bacterial infections as naturally as possible when we noticed that somehow your immune system was destroyed, we injected you with a special genetic treatment, modified for you of course, that writes a basic immune system into your very DNA via an harmless retrovirus, if not for that you would have had to live your entire life in an environmental suit. It was good we saw it when we did as I cannot even…" the medic trailed off as the young Quarian had found a new companion in the floor, fainted after hearing the casual way she had been told her immune system was now strong enough to live without a suit.

Young Aurunia lifted the Quarian without any problems and laid her back into the bed, she then called out "Kaera? Could you please keep an eye on her and tell me when she wakes again?" she asks the air, just before what seemed to be a middle-aged woman with backwards pointed ears more humanlike appeared from nowhere.

"Of course young Aurunia, it is my appointed duty as medically trained AI to help in all ways I can after all." Kaera responded with a kindly voice and smiled at Aurunia who did the same and left the room. Not knowing the panic that would occur later in the evening.

AN:

For confusion in ship sizes, in the ME universe a frigate is about 100 to 250 meters long. In the Proxima Federation (PF) that is called a corvette and Frigates are anywhere between 300 and 600 meters long.

Cruisers are about 500-600 meters in the ME universe if I remember my codex entries correctly, for PF this is 900-1200 depending on class.

Dreadnaughts in ME are around the 1 km or 1000 meters long if I recall right, battleships (the closest next level class to this one) of the PF are at least 2 km in length the largest standing at 3 km.

I'll say now that while the PF looks to be invincible, their not, they just use a drastically different tech base, seeing they never have had nor have ever needed ME tech, they will face challenges later on though when everyone's favorite ship comes through and talks with them. (not for a few chapters most likely and no they are not the most frequent characters to appear.)

Please let me know what you think of this story via reviews, it's my first foray into ME fandom and I'd like to know your opinions of this first chapter. Any grammar mistakes let me know, and I'll see if I can't change it (English is my second language).

Edit: Thank you Righteous-Sinn, for pointing out the fact that i had overlooked one typo, at one point Ran'Sara seemed to travel back in time over 400 years, this was just before she woke up, i have rectified this so it doesn't confuse anyone again.


	2. Terserai Hrinakar

**Story name:** Ramifications.

**Universe:** Mass effect with some Mitranic Legends.

**Time (approximate):** Starts just before the end of ME2.

**Relation to main line:** AU, maybe a few cameo's from ME1/ME2

**Short Summary:** On her Pilgrimage, a young Quarian running from slavers enters a blind Mass Relay Jump. Stumbling on a dirty secret hidden by the Council her desperate action has far reaching consequences. In which the Quarians get a cure for their immune systems, the Council is ignored and the Reapers are in for the ass kicking of the century.

**Disclaimer:** silly me, forgetting to inform everyone that I do not in fact, own the mass effect idea, merchandise or any other things related to it… I do own a copy of both games though. Mitranic Legends, as a universe of my own creation which stories are still being written, I do own that though I have not published story for that yet.

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Ziranthia System of the Proxima Federation.**

**Zirantsuna; Centralier City.**

**2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.**

When Ran'Sara had woken up, Kaera, who promptly introduced herself as a fully functional medical AI, had invoked the closest thing to a panicked screaming match as you could get. The room had been pretty much devastated in her attempt to protect herself from it and everyone within three floors had heard the screams as she had learned all her life AI's were not normal, not safe and most of all, seeking to end organic life. Several medics including Aurunia had been necessary to hold her down and give the terrified and hysterical young woman a mild sedative, one that kept her conscious, but calmed her nerves. Of course at that time Kaera had left to not unnecessarily scare her again. Eventually, after Ran'Sara had calmed down enough, they heard the story about the Geth, several other rampaging AI's throughout known space, and how her race had been all but massacred with the exception of some seventeen million people at the hands of the Geth the once created. That had sobered them somewhat and they had then explained the common uses of their AI's in research, factory and starship construction, anti-fighter, missile interception and shield rotation systems with as well as general assistants. With it they explained that not one of their AI's had ever caused a problem, and most had a set of standard rules in their base codes that held a few certain rules they could not, under any circumstances, break without authorized and the confirmed voice spoken codes of a high ranking military officer, these rules included not to harm any citizen of the Federation or its guests, medical AI's had an extra oath on top of it similar to the normal medics.

The only AI's without these rules were the seven original ones, three of which had come with them to this universe. They were so advanced they were regarded as citizens of the Federation and as such held to the same laws as any other citizen. Then again their creation method had been different, one had evolved from an advanced, interactive, learning anti-fighter weapons control program to an AI as its function were expanded on while finding they could use her processing power for way more than just weapons control. Eventually she had become aware, and even though her creators didn't know at first she was aware, she had regarded the programmers and military personnel as her parents and found joy in being capable of protecting them. They found out about her awareness as the ship began doing things that it normally didn't, like doors that needed to manually opened, opening automatically as known people came near them. Not allowing a saboteur onboard as he tried to open a door that for all intents and purposes should have opened. After they found out, they did briefly entertain the idea of locking her out, it had been vetoed by their commander and he had told them that she had helped them out so far and as such could simply work together. It had taken them close to a year to write the new software additions to her program, but she had been given speech, a holographic avatar and several mobile holo-drones to move outside the ship while linked to its database. The other six had been created in similar conditions as her but had instead been raised as you would a child, a child with a thinking power of several hundred yottahertz and an eidetic memory and perfect instant recall, a child that basically grew up within two years. With these original AI's help a new system had been developed, a more basic AI, this had the basic knowledge of law, use of systems and other basic tasks. This basic AI could be specialized into a certain branch, and while fully autonomous, had several restrictions placed in its base code. The rogue AI capturing system they had installed, just in case something did happen, was very efficient as it was actually created by these seven originals as a way to protect their creators/parents, their people and their descendants.

After a series of explanations of the AI in question, plus answering several technical questions most people knew, Ran'Sara called up some courage and had actually apologized to Kaera for the outburst. She had smiled and told her not to worry about it, she could not have known about the almost casual use of AI's.

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

After her very embarrassing episode, though Kaera and the others would disagree, Ran'Sara was shown around through the city, and loved every second of its architecture, culture and comfortably busy streets. Her guide was also her guard, and he was also a soldier, she knew it was a precaution and didn't mind one bit as he answered all of her questions to the best of his ability and explained the various things they saw along the way. He also wasn't being arrogant or thought she was not interesting, he asked plenty of questions about Quarian culture and life in Citadel space and beyond, if anything he acted like some old friend who had been separated in different cultures for decades. And she found most of the people were the same, interested in meeting a new species, but not staring at her like some kind of livestock or like some kind of thing, the exception were the younger children, then again children are almost always curious about the unknown, this was so with almost all races. She decided to ask why the Council had ordered their relay off limits, the only thing she had heard was that it was dangerous and illegal, not why.

He chuckled a bit nervously before answering "For what I learned in the academy we found the relay just after twenty years of settling here. Only three months after this discovery the thing comes online, and spits out this ship, Turian if I remember right from my lessons. The local battle group stationed there had initiated contact and from there it degenerated, the Turian captain went ballistic on the group commander and pretty much demanded that we leave a system we had been colonizing since four years earlier seeing that their Citadel Council had flagged it for their expansion. The commander didn't like that and pretty much told him to shut up, get lost and stay gone. Of course he answered that a lot politer and politically correct than I just did, but that was the general idea. The Turian ship backs off with a threat, which had the commander call in another battle group on standby in the next system. Just seconds later the relay activates again and a series of ships came through; I believe about three dozen of several classes. The first thing they did was aim their weapons, we responded faster and destroyed all but about four of their ships in the first salvo, which were shortly after that retreating back through the relay. The last ship rammed the relay itself in misjump, sheering off one of its two arms and destroying the ship completely. Took us a few years to get it back online, but we never really used it." He knew this history somewhat; it was briefly touched in basic military training.

Ran'Saras eyes widened, though it had been a long time ago, Turian or even normal Citadel ships for that matter, had changed little, to wipe out such a fleet in one salvo meant there had been at least more than a few heavy ships there. "Isn't that a bit excessive? Destroying almost three dozen ships because they were aiming weapons?" she asked a bit silently, he did hear the questions though.

"Ah, sorry I forget you don't know our history, you have to understand, that just twenty years before it, we were shipped here from another dimension, somewhere we might never be able to go back to, and just a year before that we finished the largest, longest war in the known universe or at least our universe, some civilian and even military people cracked a bit on that. A war that lasted fifteen millennia, mainly because the nobility of the empire we originally belonged to didn't see the use of the people on the lower social ladders or even the social outcasts and as such their scientific discoveries were ignored and those people sent to the lines as cattle to the slaughter. This changed with one man, but the simple matter is that the last and final battle was a three day slugging match between some of the most powerful ships ever made on both sides and resulted in multiple billions dead on the ground alone. People were still war weary, paranoid, and add to that the stress of adapting to a new universe you never really wanted to go to, and, well, it was the best reaction the commander then could come up with. It was a hasty reaction yes, but for all they knew those weapons had been more than powerful enough to do a lot of damage; as they had no time for extensive scans." He explained a bit somberly, he too understood why she thought it had been hasty, honestly he thought so too, but he understood why it was done, even after twenty years that kind of stress, or even the fear for a new war, would still be strong.

Ran'Sara was silent for a bit as she absorbed that bit of history, fifteen thousand years of war? Ending said war in a three day long space battle? Slugging matches, as in, get in so close aiming doesn't matter but damage done does? But for some reason, some deep part in her mind added that it hadn't been a small fight either if the billions dead and length of the war was any indication. She resolved to find some information later on as she would be situated in one of the guest apartments near the local central transport hubs. Meanwhile she had a city to see, and locals to speak to.

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Ziranthia System of the Proxima Federation.**

**Zirantsuna; Centralier City, Guest Apartments**

**2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.**

After reading all she just had on their last war she had been contemplating, she didn't know how to handle what she just read. Fifteen thousand years of war, truly turning around because of one man appearing, one human to be exact. He brought change to the small Proxima Sector, made his own fighting division, pulled in social outcasts and scientists rejected for their social status and together they built the most amazing things. Automated construction drone systems, coupled with automated mining/refining drones and stations built by said construction drones. Simply feeding it blueprints for what it needs to build and it would be built not only to perfection but also over two hundred times as fast, capable of turning out a two KM long battleship each month between one hundred CONDRONES and they had had thousands. Ships built via it were refit almost monthly during a seven year period, as new scientists were brought in or more technology was invented almost daily with a division's budget and its almost limitless resources courtesy of the automated systems. Then because of the current Sector commander being trialed for treason and endangering the emperor and his family, the Mitranic Division, as they were called, the only reason why they were still alive as they held off a good ten million enemy troops while others of the division evacuated the fortress.

At that point the Mitranic Division, under the command of one Kazehiro Ryuusai, had begun a temporary defensive war as they prepared for the real fight. For two years had they held the original lines as they were as more people were retrained or recruited. People were trained for crewing ships, and the entire Proxima Sector military was reformed into the Proxima Space Forces. Then after those two years, they had turned the tide. After securing the planet, the enemy wanted its foothold back, coming in with over sixty three thousand ships, seventy percent of those drop ships, but still a lot of targets. They never hit the ground as the PSF had hidden a one hundred thousands ships, most of them frigates and cruisers constructed over the five years before and the two years after the creation of the PSF, whom used the enemy drop ships as target practice, a few short seconds away. Their had been larger ships of course a good thousand of them had been of several different classes of battleships, a few dozen dreadnaughts and one massive vessel that would make the captain of the Destiny Ascension soil herself. In the surprise of those ships jumping in, the fight had been short but brutal and over within thirty minutes. From there the PSF fleet broke up in groups and immediately rammed an offensive action which spanned almost six hundred light years down their enemies throat and began to cut a path of destruction through their enemy's territories.

From that point on the next six months of the war had entered the history books as some of the most brutal moments in the Millennia Wars, with good cause, as during that time the enemy needed to adapt to the new tactics, technologies, ships and the new aggressive actions of their adversary. In those six months, the enemy lost over thirty four billion troops, over forty nine thousand warships including their crews and forty two planets before even a decent token defensive fight could be fought. And from there the war had lulled and heated up but had eventually escalated until the final battle about one hundred and twenty years later, a battle that made the Rachni Wars look like a border skirmish, a small one at that. It too hit the history books, as the bloodiest, brutal and most deciding battle ever recorded in over two hundred thousand years.

Proxima Sector alone had fielded over seven hundred thousand ships, half of which were battleships or larger, massive dreadnaughts had taken a very active role, supported by thousands of escorts and other heavy ships. On the ground, over twelve and a half billion troops had deployed in the initial forced landings in a separate fleet of over ten thousand massive troop carriers assisted by the combat fleet. The destruction both sides caused had become a legend on its own, of seven hundred thousand ships; just fewer than three hundred thousand remained at the end, and all of them damaged, most heavily and missing pieces. In total, just over a million ships, or what was left of them, were found in the planets new orbital ring of debris, a ring so thick in some places one had to blast a path for a corvette to get through.

The ground battle was given its own chapter in levels of destruction, in less than three days of fighting between the groups, most of which the enemy dropped during the fighting from other planets, the planet(*) was declared all but uninhabitable and the last four hours of combat was fought with the armor in full EVA mode. What was once a beautiful, green and blue planet from orbit was now nothing more than dust, fire and craters as far as the eye could see; which usually was about a kilometer, with technological enhancement, before dust obscured your view. Of twelve and a half billion troops just about forty thousand remained, a good five thousand dying from sustained injuries later on, and another thousand or so crippled for life as medical stations on the ships were not equipped for the wounds sustained and could not heal them in time. And though the ground forces took out over forty six billion enemy troops with limited orbital assistance, they still felt it a pyrrhic victory.

After the battle, the remaining enemy government, situated on separate planers, gave an unconditional surrender, they had no more warships, and most of their soldiers were dead as a lot of drop ships had hit the ground as debris, shot down by ground or space forces as they entered the atmosphere. The territories of what was once their biggest enemy were annexed into Proxima Sector. One year later, the ships responding to a colonies distress call had all been dimensionally moved to another universe. The ships, and all the colonists, and without any other choice, started their lives anew in a strange, unknown universe.

Ran'Sara had been captivated by the records, released to the public by the Space Forces a mere two months after the final battle, she had no idea which ships were actually here, or what kind or even how big they were as there were no sizes recorded, but she sure as hell was intrigued by their tech bases. Energy weapons as main weaponry instead of mass accelerators, matter/antimatter fusion artillery shells the size of a small shuttle, even though they had been outlawed for production when they came here. Fielding, not a couple of dozen, but hundreds of thousands of ships. You could say what you wanted to, but the Mitranic Division, and later the PSF, took war seriously. She doubted they had such a force here, or that they needed it, as according to records they had no real reason to build that many ships, as their territories were still a lot smaller than the original Proxima Sector. That and their tech bases are so drastically different that it would take the Citadel Council thousands of years to catch up.

The difference in tech bases also showed in the medical areas, especially the one that allowed them to heal a Quarian immune system as an afterthought, was all very interesting to her. But tomorrow they would show her around the shipyard facilities which they offered after she showed interest in seeing them, or at least the unclassified ones, as well as meet their military grandmaster, she was honestly a bit nervous about that as he was the one that instituted the changes in the original Proxima Sector, she didn't how the hell he was still alive but she chalked up to the Proxima Federations medical expertise. She resolved to get some sleep and then just hope she didn't make a fool of herself.

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

The next morning came fairly fast even though she had had trouble falling asleep because of the silence. She was woken up by the apartment's computer systems at eight as she had asked it to, and started preparing for the day. It was strange, she mused, the feeling of a morning sun on her skin, the smells from a waking country coming through an open window and then the strange reality of showering to clean one self instead of the enviro-suits built in sterility system; this she had missed the day before as everything had still overwhelmed her. She had panicked at first when she woke up this morning, terrified that she would become violently ill until she remembered that they had healed her immune system in a way that would allow it to adapt naturally to anything she hadn't encountered before. And the more she thought about her new situation in life the more she liked it; she would have to try if she could procure a sample of the cure or even see if they could be persuaded to help all of her people. After getting herself ready, she walked down to the apartment's common area, it was an area on the ground floor of the building where inhabitants could converse or simply get to know each other outside of their homes as was common among the people's culture; she would meet her guard and guide who would lead her to a transport to the shipyards there.

Once they had reached the local transport hub, she thought it strange she saw no ships anywhere near it. Her identity was confirmed via short non-invasive DNA-scan now that her genetics were on file from the Medical Centers, they simply had to push their hand against a wall scanner and state their destination, and the system would check if you had clearance or appointments to where you stated you were going. After she stated her name and was going to Terserai Hrinakar (**) the identifier turned green and showed her a holographic message to step through the gate at its right hand side. She did as it told her, and suddenly found herself looking at a room with a small holo-screen reading 'Arrival Room V14 – level 437' hanging above a closed doorway which had a small scanning system just above it, probably against intruders. She stood shocked for a second before realizing what had just happened, she had heard that they had Matter Transport technology, yet hearing and experiencing was something entirely different. A few seconds later her guard seemed to materialize trough the gateway and emerge just next to her, he looked at her and then sheepishly led her out into the Main hall attached to the Arrival Room.

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**Ziranthia System of the Proxima Federation.**

**Terserai Hrinakar****, Public Arrival area, Main Hall.**

**2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.**

The Main Hall was massive, spanned at least fourteen levels if not more, and showed her the true difference between the extremes of Citadel, Omega and Terserai Hrinakar. The Citadel was old, well maintained but old and yet you couldn't feel this anywhere, this combined with the shoppers, C-Sec and all kinds of other people and mostly clean streets. Omega was on another extreme, it was newer, but only maintained to stay functioning, and the streets contained everything from a literal pile of crap to a dead body in a corner, it was newer, but looked old and felt like this everywhere. Then there was Terserai Hrinakar, it was practically new to the universe and this was felt, the streets were clean, everything was well maintained and guarded as soldiers walked around in between the normal crowds, a massive market was on the lower level, and at least ten of the fourteen levels contained the publically accessible stores of the Main Hall, that this Main Hall was almost as long as the Citadel in width told her the true size of it. She had searched for information on this station and had found that normally only the Main Hall and several military offices around it were publically accessible, for most others you needed an appointment. There were several civilian shipyards attached to the Main Hall but Terserai Hrinakar was first and foremost a military station that was just at the very edge of maximum Transporter ranges. She however would meet with the military grandmaster today, at lunchtime, in an observation level high above the station proper. This level oversaw pretty much the entire station and was either used for diplomatic meetings; it had never seen use for this as they had never contacted other races before besides the Relay Incident, or for the Military High Council to convene.

The hallways reminded her of the fact that Terserai Hrinakar was a military station by the hallways outside of the Main Hall, and while most were unmanned at the moment, there were checkpoints at every mayor crossroad, small, low walls with only enough room for two people in between them in hallways where ten should be able to stand shoulder to shoulder. Small weapon turrets currently folded up attached to the roof showed more defenses even without its people present and she knew there were more than a few soldiers here even in peacetime. She knew then and there that even if anyone ever made it aboard that they would have to fight for every hundred meters of this station. A station that had at least a few hundred levels like this one. As they made it to the shipyard via a tram inside a circular tube, one of many military shipyards, she had to breathe out an "Oh Keelah…" as she watched the rows upon rows of inactive ship berths of varying sizes, mostly empty, but at least fifty she could see were filled with ships currently being constructed or refitted. Three of which were Heavy Combat Dreadnaughts as explained by her guide which were visibly bristling with weapons, each probably capable of blasting through the Citadel fleet, if not all than at least part of it. She had no idea how powerful one was but it could probably go one on one with that so-called red 'Geth' ship that attacked the Citadel two years ago and come out on top in sheer size alone as the Heavy Combat Dreadnaught would have dwarfed it. She still though that something was up with that so called 'Geth' ship as it was too powerful to be conventional technology, yet it alone had taken on at least half of the Citadel Fleet and won, and had taken the Human Fifth Fleet down to a quarter strength before it was killed. Still seeing the ships they had here, it made her wonder what would happen if one of these ships had been there. In the rows next to it were slightly smaller but still sizable ships called Command Dreadnaughts, made for commanding Dreadnaught battle groups or several Battleship battle groups. Four of these were visible and had noticeably less weapon coverage as their larger cousins in berths across the shipyards construction area, two more smaller Dreadnaughts, named Combat Dreadnaughts, were having several armor plates replaced, having the same weaponry as the Command Dreadnaught only without the added Battlefield Information Center and all hardware required to accommodate for the systems, it also missed the hangar bays the Command Dreadnaughts obviously had. The rest of the berths occupied were filled with a series of small ships, no larger than a small frigate, these were called Cerina Hunter Corvettes. They had been made to hunt larger ships using its agility and powerful weapons and shields. A small crew of four was enough to pilot the one hundred and twelve meter long ships; the rest of the space inside was taken up by power generators for their weapons, shields and other vital systems needed for hunting larger game. What shook her mind most was the even bigger ship berth way in the top of the construction area that was open to space, it was currently empty, but a large part of her didn't really want to know what docked there.

As she looked over the ships she could see robotic arms going over the ships, several of the ships were still under construction, but she could see the parts of the ships appear out of the tip of the robotic arms as they twisted and turned at the inside and outside of the ships. "How are they doing that?" she asked as she saw a piece of armor being 'beamed' into existence.

Her guide looked over for a second to the ships and seeing the armor being seamlessly pulled together by a robotic arm answered "Ahh, that's Matter Manipulation, it disassembles the multiple materials necessary for that particular armor alloy piece into energy from a storage location, then reassembles the materials into the single piece of armor alloy directly to were it's supposed to be. The Constructor AI's are given a set of fixed blueprints, made in three dimensional, that tells them the alloys used, order of construction, and everything else from decals inside or outside to type of weapons to be installed. This is always followed to pinpoint precision and each and every ship of the same class will be technologically the same as the next down to the nanometer and software installed, it is how we make sure our ships will always function perfectly even if you import the software settings from another ship of the same class. And while it is currently doing so with those robotic arms as it is not war time, the smaller ships can actually be assembled whole in a few minutes if necessary. This just preserves power and is less strain on the systems." after his explanation the guide briefly glanced to another person working behind a large, blue holo-screen who nodded once. "Please follow me, I'll show you." He said as he walked into a medium sized room which had several smaller robotic arms installed.

"What is this room?" was the only question Ran'Sara could ask as she looked around. Her guide walked up to one of the blank walls of the room and traced a few symbols in the air. She saw a large holo-screen, like the one the other person had been using, spring in existence with what looked to be a three dimensional development program online, with a few other traced symbols and some button pushing on a second screen she could read everything in Quarian and follow his actions in the 'Three Dimensional Developing Program'. She watched as he choose an option called 'Existing Designs' and the system changed to show 'Civilian' and 'Military' options, he chose the military one and selected a simple Combat Dagger; which looked pretty amazing, its blade was about twenty centimeters long, its downwards edge was slightly curved upwards to end in a point to its serrated edge which was perfectly level to allow for easy backwards wielding it would probably do some serious damage too as she took in its particularly nasty form, its grip was fairly standard and would allow steady grip and use by both Quarians or Humans or the similar. The alloys were listed as armor-grade, which meant the dagger could probably survive a particularly nasty hit if necessary. Her guide explained that this room was often used to develop or create small military equipment; he quickly personalized the dagger to have her name in Quarian on its blade. Then asked where she would like to carry it if it existed, she quickly answered that she would prefer her right upper thigh just under her hip with the dagger on the outside, he showed a quick modification to it that would indeed allow it. He then pressed another button that sent one of the robotic arms on the side of the walls move towards them for a bit then stop just behind them; it seemingly made its choice and quickly scanned her leg before she could even react. Not even seconds later the arm moved again a little further away behind them and created a table and the dagger plus its holster lying on top. Her guide simply told her to grab it and try it on, it was a perfect fit, and when she pulled the blade from its sheath she looked at it closely as the program showed no colors. The blade itself was black as midnight; it was a dull black so it would not give you any reflection. Both edges were silver however, and according to her guide, the silver edges would have probably cut through her shuttles hull if she could apply enough force. The silver colored edges, which was essentially the blade in its entirety as the black alloy was only cast over it, it was essentially the same alloy, just a different refinement process, and the covering black was a little weaker than the silver alloyed core which made sure it would not break fast. She had made to give it back after sheathing it when he told her to keep it; it was, essentially, a present from the military.

It was another thing she had found strange, the weapons she had on her when she escaped Omega had simple been returned to her, as well as her Omni-tool. When she asked it she got the answer that all military personal were required to carry a weapon at all times, even during off time. Visiting delegates, whether guests or ambassadors were allowed the same privilege and as such they returned her equipment, or better said, the equipment they could save, some of it was beyond repair as there was simply not enough left to rebuild them.

They made their way to the observational level GravLifts, where she would go to meet the grandmaster, the GravLift was circled by a circular staircase and seeing as it was several hundred levels up, and therefore preferred to use it. At the bottom of the GravLift, her guide said goodbye and told her she was to go up alone. When she had asked why they allowed an armed person in alone with their grandmaster, he had simply shrugged and said that if she could beat him in a one on one fight, he wouldn't be able to stop her anyway. With that cryptic message he said his farewells and moved off into the station, waving backwards lazily once. She had looked quite shocked at first, but then entered the GravLift, and pressed the holographic button for the observation level. There were no doors, but a force field closed the GravLift seamlessly, and then rocketed up with speeds that were unrivaled anywhere inside the Citadel. Apparently the Proxima Space Forces did NOT believe in slow elevators as these had to be installed with separate inertial dampening systems of some kind.

**Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

AN:

Second installment of Ramifications, in the next chapter she will learn of the true size of the station, as well as being given an interesting proposal by the grandmaster she has yet to meet. (Not that kind you perverts; and yes I know most people thought of it just because I said it, why else would I do so :).) Please leave a review with your honest opinion and suggestions to make it better.

CONDRONES: Constructor Drones, primarily used when stationary facilities are not present, or to build new stations in a new area. Usually used together with robotic construction arms on Exodus-class Fleet Support ships.

(*) – Think of Jupiter times twenty, that's approximately the planet they managed to be uninhabitable within just three days.

(**) – Grand Headquarters.

GravLift: think of a circular platform about a meter thick, no roof, no walls except those of the cylinder containing it, these only go straight up or down, usually with speeds nearing the sound barrier on long distances. They have inertial dampening, and localized artificial gravity installed to ensure you cannot fly of when stopping. The cylinders inside walls are kept seamless with force fields to prevent hands, legs or clothes catching on corners.

**aaaa **

Small ship database:

Cerina Hunter Corvette: 112 meters long, carrying 2 Dual Pulse Beam Cannons, 4 Micro-Missile Batteries for quick massed anti-fighter measures, 6 Light Anti-Fighter Turrets for longer engagements and Cruiser Shield emitters.

Combat Dreadnaught: 5,133 meters long, 40 Quad Heavy Pulse Beam Cannon batteries (four per battery), 200 Dual Quantum Pulse Cannons, 235 Quad Anti Fighter Pulse Lasers, 20 Antimatter Missile Batteries (not the truck sized ones, think twice the size of a hellfire missile, it's a standard anti-ship missile, 3 grams of matter and antimatter in mutual annihilation should theoretically create about 60 megatons of explosive power, these have multiple kilo's of each as they go off so you calculate.), Heavy Duty NanoShield Generators

Command Dreadnaught: 7,471 meters long, 40 quad heavy pulse beam cannon batteries (four per battery), 200 Dual Quantum Pulse Cannons, 375 Quad Anti Fighter Pulse Lasers (for the extra coverage needed), 20 Antimatter Missile, Heavy Duty NanoShield Generators.

Heavy Combat Dreadnaught: 9,247 meters long, 75 Quad Heavy Pulse Beam Cannon batteries (six per battery), 212 Quad Quantum Pulse Cannons, 594 Quad Anti Fighter Pulse Lasers, 32 Antimatter Missile Batteries, Flagship-class NanoShield Generators, with Heavy Duty Backup Generators. (First ship designed with redundant shield generators for when primary fails, this gives it an unprecedented chance of survival with enemy forces.)

Before you go off in they are too strong rants, the Reapers while formidable, will not be the ultimate enemy they face. And yes they will include several Citadel races in this second enemy.


End file.
